With color e-paper technology, a display consumes virtually no power when displaying a static image – though with clear limitations.
If you own an e-reader, you have likely already seen a black-and-white e-paper display. The next generation is rolling out, where e-paper can display color.
Color e-paper remains a reflective display technology, using ambient light to create the image, as opposed to emissive displays such as OLED or transmissive displays like LCD.
Power consumption close to 0W
With e-paper, the image is not created by powering, for example, LEDs. This means that energy is only used when the image on the display changes.
Once a static image is displayed on the e-paper screen, power consumption drops below 0.005W, which is low enough to be classified as 0W on the specification sheet under the IEC62301 standard from the International Electrotechnical Commission.
The downside, of course, is that the technology is not suitable for moving pictures such as movies. The color palette is very limited, contrast is not very high, and the refresh rate is low.
Samsung's first 75" color e-paper. Photo: Samsung
Color e-paper from Samsung
Samsung is launching an entire range of displays built on color e-paper technology. Initially, the product are targeted at commercial applications such as digital signage.
The displays will be available in 13 inches (1600x1200 resolution), 25 inches (3200x1800), 32 inches (2560x1440) and 75 inches (5120x2880). The latter also works for outdoor use, Samsung said at ISE 2025. The screens are very thin.
They are all equipped with a rechargeable 5000 mAh battery, two USB-C ports for charging and data transfer, 8GB of memory, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. They can be controlled from a phone app. An API in the Tizen operating system allows integration with other systems.
We are not yet at the point where e-paper can replace the LCD panel in Samsung's The Frame TV, but who knows what the future holds. Research is already underway into RLCD, where e-paper is combined with LCD.
Also read: Future display technologies: QD-EL, Ultraviolet micro-LED, OLED, more
